Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be participating in this debate today on Bill C-69. Here we are talking about adding politicians to this place.
My colleague from Calgary Centre said it so well. If we went down the street and asked 10 voters if they would support having more politicians in this place, I am sure we would get 10 very resounding noes with comments like what planet are we living on or where have we been. Here we are and in fact we are debating exactly that which flies in the face of everything we have been hearing from the Canadian voter.
I wonder where our priorities are when we are spending time talking about legislation that is so self-serving. This legislation is all about: What are my chances of being re-elected? This is the we-me syndrome, what is in it for me. That is what this is all about: I want to protect my kingdom; how does it affect my riding; how does it affect my chances of being re-elected?
It does not have the concern about what is best for the hardpressed taxpayers of this country. It does not take into consideration what the taxpayers of this country indeed want. It is the we-me syndrome: I have got to look after myself, never mind what the voters of Canada want.
We are ignoring the deficit and the debt which was the number one issue when we campaigned. In the Ontario election the polls indicated it is still the number one issue. Instead of that, here we are debating adding more MPs. In fact, there is a good case to be made for the fact that more is not better because the deficit and the debt have been increasing. In the last year the debt has gone up by $100 million. Here we are debating this issue and we are looking at $550 billion of debt. We are going into the hole $1,036 per second and we sit here fiddling about boundary lines and adding more people which I suggest will add to this debt.
What about employment? What about creating jobs, the jobs which are so desperately needed? What about the criminal justice system, the system that is not working and a system which Canadians are demanding to be overhauled? What about our social
programs? The threat to those social programs is the deficit and debt and the interest payments on that debt.
What never ceases to amaze me is that bill after bill, debate after debate from the other side reinforces the fact that government members are just not listening to the Canadian people. Whether they are not listening or it is selective hearing, they are absolutely not responding to what Canadians are asking for and in fact are demanding. They do not understand the change which has taken place over the years. The politics of 30 years ago, which unfortunately is still directing the group across the aisle, do not work any more.
Canadians are going to have no part of it any more. The Canadian voters have said very loudly and very clearly: "We want politicians in Ottawa who are representing us. We want to have a voice in Ottawa because obviously what you people have been doing over the years has not worked. We are deeper in debt than we have ever been and we are getting fewer services for more dollars than ever before". The old style politics of we know best, we know what is best for the mindless masses just is not working any longer.
I want to congratulate those government members who have stood up and represented the people in their ridings. That was courageous. I was absolutely appalled when I heard what was supposedly said by the Prime Minister. I do not know his exact words. He complimented the ones who changed their position and stayed with the party. He said that it took courage not to buck him. What about the courage it took to buck the leader and vote with the people who sent them here to Ottawa? That is where the real courage was. Those people should have been complimented. They should understand that.
That is the message from the voters. They want politicians to represent them in Ottawa, not to listen to the party line. That is the curse of this place: Do what you are told. We saw that last night. I could not believe the display in this House. Members were being told not to vote: Party over people, do not stand up and vote, we have got the numbers. Those members are not going to be recorded in some of those votes. They were here but they did not stand up to vote yea or nay.
How can they justify that in their conscience? We are taking the salary. We are sent here to do a job. Here we are ignoring the voters and responding to one person, the whip. Do as you are told, fall into line or else.
There is a double standard here that I am sure has not escaped members on the other side. They are being disciplined and whipped into shape for doing what is right, for representing their voters. Then we have the Minister of Canadian Heritage, who violates this trust. He invites a group to a dinner and there are political pay-offs, but there is no reprimand, that is all right. It does not matter about the appearance of a possible conflict here. It is okay.
The double standard has to be very confusing to the other members of the government, and it certainly is confusing to the public and to the staff in the minister's department.
What we had here last night was a charade. As a member of the Reform Party, I was appalled at what I saw. With 205 new members elected to this place, the message was: "We want change". You can look at it as either 205 new members were voted in or 205 old members were thrown out. Either way, the message remains the same: "We want change".
Perhaps part of the problem over there is that the government thinks it won the election. Its members actually think they won the election. I would suggest that they did not win the election; the Conservatives lost the election. And the Canadian voters are still looking for a party that will represent them. Day after day they are not getting it. I suggest that the day of reckoning is coming in 1997, because those members who are not listening will be replaced with members who will.
What the voters have asked us to do is look at the old ways. "We do not care if that is the way you have been doing it for years. It has not worked. We want some change. We want some fresh thinking in this place. Do not kowtow to the party line. Listen to us. Listen to the common sense of the common people. The message is we want less government, we want more efficient government". That is not what this bill gives them, or even addresses.
The Reform Party on the other hand has a vision. We are looking ahead. We are listening to voters. We are going to question the old ways. I am very proud that we are. The windows and doors need to be opened. Let us look at the way we have been doing things. There has to be a better way because what we have been doing has not worked. The country has never been further apart as a complete country and we have never been deeper in debt. Very obviously, something is wrong. It is broke. It needs to be fixed. Let us get that message across.
There is a good argument to be made for quality, not quantity. There is absolutely no basis or justification for increasing the size of this House. Reform proposed a 10 per cent reduction in members. We said we can do this job with fewer people, and there is no doubt that we can. In our proposal, Ontario would lose some seats. I would suggest that Ontario is prepared to accept that, because the voters in Ontario know that we have too much government. We are overgoverned. They are quite prepared for less.
In going from 301 to 273 we could reduce the number of members by 28. I heard a figure of approximately $1 million to keep a member in this House. If that is right, we are looking at a saving of $28 million a year, a significant amount of money. And it works two ways: We will reduce the cost to the taxpayer, and I would suggest we will do a better job in running the business here.
More does not mean better. That has just been proved by the statistics that came out from StatsCanada today. Those stats have proved that more taxes mean fewer dollars in the pockets of the average family. In 1989 the average family income was $46,000, and because of this increased government and the increased taxes that has now dropped to $43,000. So the average family income has declined by $3,000. There is a very clear example that more means less and does not improve the situation. We are overgoverned.
You can look at Australia. It was mentioned earlier that Australia would double the number of voters per member for Canada. Germany has about two and a half times the voters per member, and just south of the border the United States has five times the voters per member. So you can certainly justify reducing the number of members we have in this House.
We just had an Ontario election in which one item in the common sense revolution was to reduce the size of the legislature. They wanted to take a 25 per cent reduction. That common sense revolution was overwhelmingly supported by the majority of people in Ontario based on that: less government, more efficient government. More does not mean better. We can do a better job.
In talking about the Ontario election, the common sense revolution would do away with MP pensions and let members look after their own pensions and get out of the taxpayers' pockets. We have not got that message here in Ottawa. We just changed the gold plated pension plan to a platinum. We did a little bit of scraping. But I suggest it is not going to sit well with the Canadian voter and it will be a major issue in the next federal election.
Reference was made to the gun control legislation that has been rammed through. You have to vote the party line and never mind what the people in your riding say. They say that in the red book they said they would do this. There is nothing in the red book about registration. The red book did talk about getting tough with the criminal use of firearms, but there is nothing in there about registration.
The voters in Ontario sent a very strong message, but it will be missed. All others have. I am sure this one will go right over the heads of the Liberals and they will continue to miss it. The voters of Ontario said they want a government that will listen, they want less government. But it has been ignored, and the Liberals will pay dearly for it in the next election.
There are some members opposite who have been listening to the voters. I would just like to quote some from the earlier debate. I will go back to Bill C-18, the debate we had in March 1994. I believe it was the solicitor general who said: "Since Confederation the number of seats in the House of Commons has increased steadily, from 181 in 1867 to the current level of 295. If new rules had not been adopted some years ago the number of members by now would be more than 340. This is something we should be considering". Amen. I think that is right on.
There was the member for Halton-Peel, and I quote from the debate: "If one looks at Australia, for example, there are about twice as many voters per member in that country. We are at the point where we have to make some changes. Either that or we are going to have to knock out one of the walls". Right on. This House is full. There is no more room.
The parliamentary secretary to the minister of public works: "In the 34th Parliament I had suggested that perhaps this Parliament should look at the possibility of significantly reducing the number of MPs. Would this not be an opportunity to see whether we could do with one-quarter or perhaps one-third fewer MPs?" What fresh thinking. Right on. There is some hope over there. There is a germ of common sense.
The Liberal member for Carleton-Gloucester, and I quote: "Is this room not getting a little crowded, and has our national and public debt not grown so much that we should act to curb their growth?" Right on again. At a saving of possibly $28 million a year, there could be substantial improvement in reducing our debt and deficit and at the same time doing a better job for the Canadian taxpayer.
Just to go back to the bill and looking at some of the amendments that have been proposed by the Senate, there are some that we can support, like the one that will reduce the allowable deviation from the provincial electoral quota from 25 per cent to 15 per cent. We proposed that and we can support it. It will help equalize the voting power between constituencies within a province.
We can support the requirement that the two non-judicial commission members be resident in the province for which the commission is established. That makes good, common sense.
There are some amendments in there that have been proposed by the Senate that we can support. However, in what we are debating here today, unfortunately we are wasting a lot of time and failing to deal with the real issues and the real problems the country is facing.
In closing, I heard the other day that the number of people who are watching this parliamentary channel has tripled in this 35th Parliament. I was really encouraged by that, because what it says is that the Canadian people are watching what is going on here. They are watching and they are listening. That is good news, because they are not just taking what is necessarily recorded in the press as being the gospel but they are watching what is being said and done here. They are watching those votes. They are watching those members who had the courage to stand up and represent the people in their ridings. They know the ones who were told to sit down and
do as they were told. I will tell you that is exactly not what the Canadian voters want from their elected members at this time.
I am encouraged when I discover that the viewing audience has tripled. I think the viewing audience is going to triple again as we get closer to the election and the Canadian voters realize what has been going on in this place.
The arrogance toward the voters perhaps can be partly explained by this leading in the polls. That is pretty heady stuff: We can do no wrong; look where we are in the polls.
I would suggest that is a very artificial number to base their popularity on. They should look to Ontario, because it was a very good indication of how wrong that can be. It was their own party that was leading in the polls in that province, in Ontario. When the rubber hit the road, when they got down to talking about the issues, it was just blown away. That is what it is all about today: it is the issues and who is best addressing those issues and who is listening to the voters.
I suggest to you that day after day we are seeing that this government is not listening. It is still the same old: "We know best. Listen to your leader. Do not worry about the voters". That is the tragedy for them. It is our salvation, because it is going to ensure a government that will be elected in 1997 that is truly listening to the people. I suggest that is going to be the Reform government.